Have Your Cake…And Listen To It Somewhere Else

I detest the band Cake. I think they may be the worst band ever, and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a picture of them. I also know that this rant is about 20 years too late. But I didn’t like them in high school or college or at any point in the intervening two decades. My disgust was reignited when I heard them on the ‘New Alternative’ station as I was flipping stations in my car.

I like the trumpet. I like Ska, to the extent that anyone really likes Ska, are they Ska? I don’t know. I’m sure what people love about them is that they ‘defy musical convention’ or some other happy horseshit like that. But there is something about this collection of monkeys blowing on their horn and rap/talking that sends a dart straight into the rage part of my brain. I feel like Chekov in Star Trek II when Khan sticks that beetle thing in his ear.

If I ever have a really important secret and you need to know it, throw “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” on the hi-fi for about six bars and I’ll be singing like a canary. I would rather have to endure what Malcolm McDowell goes through in a Clockwork Orange than have to ever listen to Cake again. And what’s with their name? Even among food-related band names, they’re at the bottom of the list. Bread, okay. The Cranberries, a little choking goose, but not bad. I’d rather spend a Cruel Summer with Bananarama than 15 seconds with Cake.

I ask all of you radio station program directors, please, when you’re having your semi-annual ‘what 120 songs will we play this year’ meeting, leave Cake and any of their rotten crumbs off the list. They are a group best left in the detritus of mediocre 90s music.

In my opinion, they should “Keep Going the Distance” into the dustbin of historical musicians that slipped up and sold a million records to a bunch of nincompoops who didn’t know any better.